Gravity
by x-HotMess
Summary: You're onto me, and all over me. Justin/Alex
1. Torn Apart

I didn't mean to do it.

"Why do you always have to make everything about you?" I yelled.

"Max, I…" she looked taken aback, and I didn't blame her, I never fought with her like this. It was always Justin.

"I hate you! I wish you weren't my sister!"

Her mouth dropped open for a fraction of a second, and anguished tears burst forward from her eyes, but only one of them hit the floor before there's nothing but smoke and empty space where she was standing.

I coughed and narrowed my eyes. "Alex?" I called out tentatively, but there was no reply, only the tiny droplet on the carpet of the single tear that had slipped from her cheek.

I ran down the stairs into the sub station two at a time, colliding with Justin at the bottom.

He grabs my shoulders frantically. "What's happening? What was that noise? Why were you yelling at…?"

His sentence was cut off but the Earth shifting beneath our feet. The whole shop began to rattle and the customers screamed and dived under the tables while Justin gathered me under his arm and pulled me to the floor, covering my body with his own. He scrambled under the counter, dragging me along with him as I was screaming for our parents and Alex. Then, just a suddenly as it had started, the earthquake ceased and all was still.

I could feel Justin trembling above me as I noticed his eyes frantically scan me for injuries. I could see his mouth forming questions, enquiring about my well-being but the ringing in my ears and the panic bubbling in my chest drowned out any concentration power I might have had. Then my father skidded in next to us, gathering Justin tightly into his arms and kissing him on the forehead, before picking me up on the ground and leading me into the kitchen where my distraught mother enclosed me the same bone-crushing hug that Dad currently had Justin in. Through all the pandemonium of subsided terror and overwhelming relief, I forced a question into the chaos that brought it to a standstill.

"Where's Alex?"

Mom tensed and pushed me away by my shoulders. "What did you say?"

"Alex. My sister. Your daughter? Is she okay?" I looked from each of my parents shocked faces coated in sorrow, to Justin who simply looked confused.

"Max, we don't have a sister," Justin frowns with concern, perhaps thinking I knocked my head while the world was partially collapsing around us.

Mom just lets out a little moan and gets to her feet, mumbling something about helping the customers and shutting the store for the rest of the day. I go to follow her, but Dad takes my arm in a tight grip.

"I don't know how you know about her, but be careful around your mother, okay? We'll talk after we get this mess cleaned up," he hisses.

I've never seen him this serious, and I've done some really bad stuff enough times to get me a lifetime's supply of disappointed/perplexed and/or frustrated looks from my father. But I had never, ever seen him this solemn. And that only made me panic more about Alex.

Frantically, I turned to Justin. "What did you mean by we don't have a sister? Why does everybody here seem to have forgotten about Alex?"

"Max, who is Alex?" Justin runs his hands across his forehead, like he's trying to smooth out the creases of mayhem in his mind. "Is she some kind of imaginary girlfriend?"

"No!" I yelled, refusing to believe that somehow I had obliviated my sister out of existence. "Alex! You know Alex!"

"No, I don't," he affirmed with a slight air of condescension, like he was getting annoyed with whatever game I was playing.

I exhaled a irritated sigh and try to think about how I could explain to my family that I had probably mistakenly removed someone who we loved very dearly from the universe, and also convince them to help me get a girl they didn't even know back into our lives.

"Justin," I groaned, reaching for the wand and spell book that were in my back pocket. "What if I told you I accidently cast a really, really horrible spell that changed the entire course of our lives and now I really, really, _really_ need to reverse it so everything can go back to normal?"

"Well, I'd say that would be really, really impossible, seeing as you don't have any wizard powers, because I won the contest, remember?" Justin raised his eyebrows. "Dude, are you sure you're okay? Maybe I should take you to the hospital, you're displaying symptoms of a concussion…"

"I don't have a concussion!" I cried, despairing at my empty pockets. "This is all wrong! I won the contest! I had the full wizard powers, but then I messed up! Where the heck is my sister?"

"Max, what has gotten into you?" Mom was standing at the door, ready to scold me, but looking like she didn't have enough energy to even raise a patronising finger.

"Mom, please, answer me this," I take a desperate step towards her as Dad appears . "Do you remember your daughter?"

My mother's eye's cloud over at once and Dad shakes his head warningly at me. "Of course I do, sweetie."

Inexplicable hope swelled inside of me. "Thank goodness! Do you know where she is?"

Mom's hand went to her mouth. "She died."

My stomach sunk and I glanced over at Justin, who looked pale as a ghost. "Mom, what are you talking about?" he whispers.

Dad helped Mom into a chair as she gestured for us to come to her. She took our hands and squeezed them so tightly I was afraid to let go.

"It's always been too hard to talk about this, but you boys have a right to know. It was about a year and a half after Justin was born, and I was 36 weeks pregnant with a little girl. Then one day I woke up and she just wasn't moving."

The anguish on Theresa Russo's face was breaking my heart. I was losing feeling in my fingers, but I held onto Mom's hand harder than ever. I knew Justin was doing the same.

"I still had to deliver her, knowing that she wouldn't be a kicking, screaming, _living_ baby. It's the worst feeling imaginable, to have a child, but to not have the child."

I wiped at my stinging eyes with the back of my hand. "I'm so sorry, Mom."

"It's okay, honey," she pats my hand that's dotted with tearstains. "It's in the past now. I just count myself lucky I have two wonderful sons."

"One more wonderful than the other, right Mom?" Justin joked half-heartedly. "What was her name?"

"Alexandra," I answered almost instantly.

Mom gazed up at me with shimmering eyes. "How do you know about her, Maxxie? Did you have some sort of vision during the earthquake?"

I bit my lip and nodded hesitantly. "Yeah. Yeah, I must have blacked out when Justin tackled me, but somehow I woke up feeling like I had a sister."

Dad steps towards me and squeezes my face in his hands, giving me a piercing look. "That's odd. It's unusual for the losing sibling to display phantasmagorical symptoms of distress, but the contest wasn't that long ago. Maybe not all the magic is gone from you."

My stomach curled into a tight knot. If I wasn't a wizard, not even a little bit, how was I supposed to get Alex back?

**a/n: this isn't going to be a incesty thing, rather an alternate version of the movie.  
****oh, the mysteries of love, and the perils of wishes.  
****review, if you please :)**


	2. Thrown Together

The atmosphere at dinner time was sour, with Dad sending nervous glances at Mom every two seconds, and Justin staring at his chicken like it would jump off his plate and run down the hall if given the chance. Eventually Mom announced she was tired after long day and left the table without another word. Dad cleared the table and Justin just shot me an indescribable look. He pushed back from the table and announced her was heading down to the lair. I hesitated a moment before I got up and followed him.

"Justin!" I called down the stairs. "I have to talk to you!"

"What?" he turned to look at me from the kitchen, the light filtering through the open door of the lair illuminating half of his face, softening his features, and making him look more like Alex than I'd even seen him.

"I didn't black out in the earthquake," I stated forcefully, but he already knew that. He just nodded, and waited for me to continue. "I'm pretty sure it was my fault. I made a huge mistake and I need you to help me fix it."

His face crumpled in suspicion, biting down on his bottom lip. "How did you cause the earthquake? You don't have powers anymore."

"But I did," I insisted. "I won the contest, but Alex found a stupid loophole in the code that called for a rematch. We got into a fight, I forgot how powerful I was, so I wished she wasn't my sister. She vanished and then the earthquake happened, and now everything's different and she might be gone forever!"

Justin stared at me, astounded, before pity washed over his face. "Max, I really want to believe you, you sound so sure."

"I _am_ sure! If you help me get her back I can prove it to you!" I replied hotly, my eyes stinging and a lump the size of an orange in my throat.

"I'm sorry," Justin shook his head with the weight of my world on his shoulders. "But I think I would remember having a sister. And what if I brought her back? That would be like throwing 16 years of what Mom and Dad could have had in their faces. All the grief that they've built up won't just be let go because they suddenly have a daughter. I can't do it. I won't do it to them."

"Justin, please!" were the only words I could force into the thick air around me. "I need everything to go back to normal!"

"This is normal, Max," he entered the lair and sent me a sympathetic look over his shoulder. "Nothing can go back because nothing was ever any different."

But I could see the differences in a life without Alex.

Justin was quieter, he didn't respond to my barbs as fiercely as he used to. He just let them glide over him and frowned, before burying his nose in a comic book that Alex would have plucked out of his hands and thrown out the window, had she ever seen him reading it.

Mom didn't laugh quite as much. She still glowed with pride when Justin brought home an academic award, and smiled to herself watching me throw jellybeans in my mouth, but I never heard her laugh like she did when she threw her head back and let the laughter burst out of her, like fireworks. Those were the laughs she saved for Alex's one-liners that caught her off-guard.

Dad just seemed less attentive. He gave Justin experienced tips on casting spells, but was more relaxed because there was less chance of something going wrong. And he didn't even seem to bother with the sorts of potential trouble I could get into. That's not to say I was invisible, just that he seemed less concerned with the possibility of having to bail me out of sticky situations.

It appeared a life without Alex was less stressful, but nowhere near as much fun. I was almost resigned to the idea that I would just have to get used to this enormous emptiness in my life, when one afternoon, out of nowhere, three weeks to the day that I had vanished her out of our living room, Alex walked into the Waverly Street Sub Station.

I dropped the dishcloth I was wiping the counter with and gawped at her. To think I had almost forgotten what she looked like; the slant of her eyebrows, the confident tilt of her chin, the rebellious blue streaking out of her hair at he nape of her neck. I rushed over and engulfed her into my arms.

"Alex! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" my voice shook as I hugged her tighter than I ever had before. "How did you get back?"

"Dude, what the hell?" a pair of indignant hands jabbed into my chest, shoving me backwards. "I'm a little old for you, don't you think?"

My stomach turned in on itself. "Alex, don't you remember? It's me! Max! Your brother!"

"Sorry buddy, you must have me confused with someone else," she squeezed my shoulder lightly and gave me a strange look. "My name's not Alex. I'm not your sister."

I wrung my hands together, trying to think of a logical way to explain the situation that would make sense to someone other than me. If she wasn't my sister, she wasn't Justin's sister. She wasn't Mom and Dad's daughter. She didn't know any of us. I must have looked truly shattered, because her expression became softer and she gave my arm a sympathetic rub.

"Don't worry, she'll show up soon," she murmured kindly. "I mean, this is New York City, how many places can she be?"

A short bark of laughter burst from her mouth, before she folded her arms in front of her chest, her smile radiating the utmost satisfaction in her joke.

"Sorry," I choked out, staring at the scuffed toes of my sneakers. "You just look a lot like her. I got my hopes up."

"It's okay," she raises one shoulder in an apathetic shrug. Textbook Alex. "But I really need to use the bathroom, is there one in here?"

"Um, yeah, sure, but you need to be a customer to use it," I flapped my hand in the direction of the counter.

Not-Alex blew her bangs off her forehead in frustration. "Fine. Has this place got good eats?"

"Sure. I'll make you the best sandwich on the menu," I grinned, handing her the bathroom key and getting to work.

I had just slapped the final pickle on the top when she slid into the seat opposite me and looked down at her sandwich, her eyes widening.

"Man, I love pickles!" she gasped, reaching forward and beckoning the sub towards her. "Gimme gimme! What's it called?"

"The Motherload," I laughed, squirting mayonnaise over the finished product and sliding it over. "Meatballs and cheddar with fried onions and salad, topped with pickles and mayonnaise. You… I mean, my sister invented it. It's her favourite."

Not-Alex beamed at me through her stuffed mouth, before she gazed at the menu and her mouth twisted in confusion.

"How much is it? It's not on the menu," she mumbled out of the side of her mouth that wasn't still chewing.

Of course it wasn't. Alex had never invented it because Alex had never existed.

"It's on the house," I bit my lip and stared solemnly at the girl in front of me. There was no doubt in my mind that this was Alex. She just didn't know she was.

"Thanks Max," she shot me a genuine smile. "You're a sweet kid. I'm Lena."

I grabbed the outstretched hand lightly and shook it, my thoughts racing at a million miles an hour. Lena? Gag me. No, you're Alex. Your name is _AlexAlexAlex_.

"So, Lena," I forced out of my throat. "You from around here?"

"I'm not really from around anywhere," her face darkened as she scrunched up a napkin with more ferocity than was necessary. "I moved here from Buffalo last week."

"Did your parents get a job in the city or something?" I fished for more information about her family, her alternate reality family, not her real family. Not us.

"No," she snapped, throwing the crumpled napkin onto the plate. "No, they didn't."

"Oh," I drew back, sensing something dangerous in her tone. "Sorry, I didn't mean…"

"It's fine," she scowls, clearly indicating that it was not fine. "I'm in my sixth foster home in eight years. It sucks being a kid stuck in the system."

"Wow," my eyes widened. So she didn't have any family at all? "If you don't mind me asking… what happened to your parents?"

"Dunno," her gaze fell to her metallic sneakers. "Never knew 'em. I was born in the back of a cab and handed over as the fare."

"That's horrible!' I gasped.

"Yeah, yeah, pull in the sails on your sympathy boat, kiddo," she looked up with no trace of the vulnerability she just displayed. "It could be worse."

"So you don't know anyone here? You don't have any friends? Nothing?"

"Rub a little more salt in the wound, why don't you?" she puckered her lips and gazed at me quizzically. "You're a weird kid, Max."

"Tell me about it," I grinned. "You wanna hang out?"

"Aren't you working?" she nods at the last straggling customers around the sub station as the day is coming to an end.

"Nah, I can get my brother to close up," My heartbeat quickened at the thought of Justin finally being able to meet Alex, even if she wasn't his sister. "I'll go get him."

I raced to the bottom of the spiral staircase, took a deep breath and screamed "JUSTIN!"

"What?" came his exasperated reply.

"Come down here! I need you to close up!" I yelled back up.

"Max! I have a Mathletics final I need to prepare for! Why can't you do it?" his voice was getting closer, which meant he was probably going to do what I asked anyway, no matter how much he tried to protest.

I winked at Alex, who was sniggering at the fact that he used the word 'Mathletics' in a serious context. "I'm hanging out with a friend!"

He groaned and his feet appeared on the first step. I fist-pumped the air and dashed back over to Alex, pulling my apron over my head.

"He'll do it."

She raised her eyebrow at the person coming down the stairs. "He's kind of a pushover, isn't he?"

"You can't really help it when you siblings are bullies," I turned and threw my apron into the kitchen as she laughed, but when I turned back around, the mocking expression on her face had evaporated, leaving her with an expressionless stare.

A stare fixed directly at Justin. She took a step towards my brother, still grumbling as his attention was focused on clearing trays off of the tables nearest to him. She moved closer and closer and I opened my mouth to call her away, but I was struck with a feeling that it wouldn't matter what I said, it wouldn't make a difference. Like a moon who had found a planet to revolve around, Alex was caught in Justin's gravitational pull, and I couldn't fight it if I tried.

I watched in trepidation as the two strangers who meant to world to me met in what shouldn't have been the first time. Justin glanced up and met Alex's eye, and his jaw dropped.

"Hi," she whispered quietly, but I could swear the world could have heard her.

"Hi," he repeated, dumbstruck. "H-h-have we met before? You look so... so familiar."

"You too," the air between them was prickling, even I could feel it. "But I think I would remember you."

Justin, not used to compliments from pretty girls, blushed profusely and spluttered gibberish as a means of thanks. The Alex I knew would have laughed harshly and called him a loser, but this not-Alex just smiled and waited for him to find his tongue. As they stared into each others eyes, my nervousness at their meeting turned to ice in my stomach. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Alex was supposed to know this was her home and come back right away. Not to stand so close to Justin in astonished silence as the minutes ticked away. It was almost like they were... no. It couldn't be. They were brother and sister, they had to remember each other, they had to love each other like that, not like... not in the way they looked now.

Aw, crap.

**a/n: oh max. you so crazy. look at what you've done!  
****thanks for your cute reviews, kids :) stay tuned.**


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